MH17: the other flight paths
MH17 was far from the only plane flying over dangerous air space
There’s been a lot of back and forth over whether MH370 was flying in prohibited airspace. The FAA had warned airlines not to fly over Crimea. Ukraine created a prohibited air zone over the Crimea up to 29,000 feet. People are rightfully asking why MH17 was flying only a few thousand feet above this.
Whatever MH17's particular reason, many other planes were doing the same. This heatmap, compiled from planefinder.net data, shows the flight paths of the 825 flights that have crossed the region since Monday. This includes many European flights, as well as Asian ones.
The black dots show the route of MH17, a regular flight. Another MH17 flight, with the registration 9M-MRA, flew pretty much an identical route the day before the shoot down, Tuesday July 16.
The dataset this is based contains detailed altitudes for each flight. Many flights were flying lower than MH17 over the same zone.
UPDATE
MH17 was flying at 31,000 feet until 13.05, when it climbed to 33,000 feet, according to Flight Radar 24 — an indication it was aware of and observing the restricted airspace.
It seems that MH17 followed the proper advice. So the question must be: who gave that advice, and why did they think it was safe?
